Former Scottish Headteacher gets 4 Million children taking part in The Daily Mile

Four million children across more than 16,500 schools and nurseries across 90 countries are now signed up to The Daily Mile, the life-changing children’s health and wellbeing initiative.

The Daily Mile, supported by INEOS, gets millions of children active through 15-minutes of outdoor exercise to promote positive physical, mental and social health.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Chairman of INEOS: “INEOS has supported the Daily Mile for years because it’s a free, simple, and effective way to improve children’s physical and mental wellbeing. It has been a natural fit for us to work with an initiative that is so passionate about helping more children enjoy exercise more often, and we look forward to its success as it continues to transform more lives around the world.”

· Elaine Wyllie MBE,  Founder of The Daily Mile:  “From a single school in Stirling to now over 16,500 schools and 4 million children, it is staggering to see how this initiative has grown into a global movement in a little over 10 years.

The Daily Mile Foundation, supported by INEOS, today announced that 4 million children in 90 countries worldwide are taking part in the health and wellbeing initiative, up double in size since 2019.

2 million children are taking part in England alone.

The initiative has received formal backing from the Scottish Government and in 2022 Scotland was announced as the world’s first Daily Mile Nation, meaning over half of primary schools across all 32 local authorities are doing the Daily Mile, developing healthy habits for life.

The Foundation’s expanding network of partners in the UK, Europe, USA and beyond continues to focus on increasing the number of schools taking part. In England alone, partnerships with Sport England, supported by the National Lottery, ITV and London Marathon, have led to record engagement with The Daily Mile, resulting in over 2 million children participating. The support from national and local partners around the world who share the ambition to help children become more active is critical to the continued growth of The Daily Mile.

The Daily Mile initiative was founded by Elaine Wyllie MBE in 2012 – born out of a concern around children’s lack of physical fitness. Headteacher of St Ninians’s Primary School in Stirling, Scotland, at the time, Elaine got her pupils moving for 15 minutes every day to improve their overall health and wellbeing.